City Hall
Budget Passed, Airport Off the Hot List: Reeves’ Thursday Roundup
Honoring Myra Williams. Reeves opened by recognizing Myra Williams, a city employee for 36 years who recently passed away. The Parks and Recreation Board has recommended naming the multipurpose room at Cobb Center after her—a nod to the preschool program, summer camps, after-school programs and basketball program she started there. The naming now heads to the Pensacola City Council for final approval.
FY27 Budget: Leaner, Same Tax Rate
The City Council gave final approval to the FY27 budget. Reeves credited finance director Amy Lavoy and roughly 18 department and division heads for the work.
- Property tax rate held steady—unchanged since 2011
- Overall budget cut by $1.2 million year over year
- General fund reduced by $500,000
- Fewer overall city employees, while maintaining essential services
Airport: Off the “Hot List,” New Terminal Construction Starts Next Week
The number to remember: 485. Reeves said the airport has gone 485 consecutive days—or 7,275 hours—without a TSA security wait of 30 minutes or longer, the federal threshold known as the “hot list.” The last violation was May 20, 2025. He credited the airport team, TSA staffing fixes and help from federal officials, including Sen. Rick Scott, after the airport was found to be understaffed by as much as 30–35 percent.
- Construction begins. The notice to proceed on the new airport terminal will be issued next week, with site preparation starting shortly after. Reeves called it a “huge nine-figure investment” in the airport.
What that means for parking. With construction eating into available space, the city is pushing several tools to ease the crunch:
- The site flypensacola.com shows live, real-time parking-lot capacity 24/7
- The city is in talks with Uber, Lyft and taxi partners on an awareness and incentive campaign for the holiday season
- The McAllister overflow lot—the grass lot between 9th Avenue and Langley—has a shuttle reachable by QR code, and new signage is coming to direct drivers there when other lots fill up
- Long-term fix. The airport has a fully designed 600-space parking expansion connected to the Tipton lot, still needing construction funding.
- Parking capacity is already up 25% over the last four years—about 10 years ahead of the strategic plan’s target of 3,800 spaces by 2030.
- The airport has put roughly $7–8 million into parking, serves about 500,000 enplanements, and
- 60% of customers drive rather than fly commercial ride shares.
FDOT Funding Smarter Traffic Signals
The Florida Department of Transportation is funding $772,000 in signal equipment upgrades at 25 intersections, mostly along Garden and Cervantes streets, routed through the TPO. City staff is installing the equipment now, with work expected to continue for about a month.
- Why it matters. The upgrade will link the city’s traffic network with FDOT’s regional traffic management system, opening the door to capabilities like turning intersection lights green ahead of an approaching fire truck or first responder vehicle—something not currently possible.
Tree Canopy: $5,500 Grant Up for Council Vote
The City Council will be asked next Thursday to approve a $5,500 grant to Canopy Restoration Inc., a local tree-planting and urban forestry nonprofit, to fund 80 trees as part of phase two of the tree canopy restoration project.
- In four years, the nonprofit’s volunteers have planted 350 trees with a 98% survival rate
- More than 150 volunteers have taken part, and they commit to watering and monitoring new plantings for a full year
- Separately, the city itself planted 84 trees and gave away 253 tree seedlings as part of this year’s Arbor Day celebration
Why Reeves is highlighting it. He called the nonprofit’s work a model of citizens stepping up to do the job “less expensively than the city can do it with the red tape that it takes for government to do things.”
